Buddha, The Cat Who Lives Up To His Name

Buddha is a tall black cat who looks like a panther. He is part Siamese and although his temperament isn't typical of a Siamese or of any other cat I've ever known, he does have the Siamese trait of talkativeness.

Buddha came to me already named and his name proved prophetic. Throughout the years, he unfailingly lives up to his name. He's an exceptional cat. He has an unusually mellow, patient, peaceful loving personality and gets along with everybody. He's the first to greet and try to make friends with any new cat who comes into the household. He mothers any new kitten who comes into the household. He has mothered and looked after many rescue kittens over the years and patiently helped teach newcomers house rules such as not to bother the birds. When I lived on a farm and used to breed German Shepherd Dogs, Buddha was one of the cats who taught the puppies to respect, get along with, and like cats. Most of the other cats go to Buddha when they want their ears or the area under their chins washed. Even Hallie, who rarely ever let another cat even touch her, would occasionally allow him to wash her ears. Buddha is almost always in a good mood and rarely ever gets into a quarrel with another cat.

A little over nine years ago, in September I stopped by a small local shelter's mall display to see their cats. They had two black cats that they wanted to adopt together and because they were so desperate to get these two cats adopted before October, they offered the two cats to me for free. Most shelters if they're wise, will not adopt out black cats during October because of Satanists and others who acquire and brutalize black cats in Halloween rituals. The neutered male, named Buddha, was 7 months old. The spayed female, named Stormy, was 4 months old.

Stormy was a sweet, although rather reclusive little cat. Throughout her tragically short life, she was very bonded to Buddha and dependent on him for companionship. She died when she was only a few years old, of a freak accident of choking to death swallowing a wild bird that somehow had gotten into the house undetected.

Buddha is a very intelligent cat and very adept at using his forepaws. He knows how to open cabinet doors and once managed to turn the doorknob and open an unlocked door to the house. Thank God I caught it and shut the door before he or any of the other cats got outside!

It's hard to tell Buddha's story in his own profile. It's easier to tell Buddha's story through the stories of other cats because his story is of welcoming, befriending, teaching, comforting, grooming, and mothering many of my permanent residents and other cats and kittens that I rescued and found adoptive homes for over the years.

Among countless other cats and kittens over the years, Buddha mothered Uno, Lefty, and Righty when they were kittens. In his photo which I hope will correctly show up on Catster soon, he is shown mothering and taking care of a red and white longhaired kitten named Bratsky.

Happy 10th Birthday Buddha! Today Buddha is 10 years old and while I'm glad he's alive and well and celebrating another birthday, I also feel a twinge of sadness at knowing he's getting old. Signs that he's starting to get old are creeping in. His chin has become somewhat grizzled now. I took a most interesting photo of him when he was directly in the light of a sunbeam. The effect of the sunbeam made his coat look brown and when Catster gets the photo problem fixed again so the photo shows up, you'll be able to see this effect. Even more interestingly, in the sunbeam you can clearly see that he is darker in the areas corresponding to the point color areas on a Siamese cat. In most lighting, he appears black. I've seen many blacks that showed ghost tabby markings in certain kinds of lighting but this is the first time I ever saw a black appear brown with even darker brown in the areas corresponding to point colors in a ghost Siamese markings effect!

I wish Buddha could live forever to befriend other cats, mother rescue kittens, and teach young cats the household rules.

Thank you for your appreciation of Buddha and his diary, and for honoring him with a DDP two days in a row now. In fact as I first saw Buddha's diary was a DDP for today, I refreshed the page just to make sure my browser was loading the current page. While I'm surprised, amazed, and thrilled that he got a DDP two days in a row now, Buddha himself is taking his cue from Uno in remaining grounded and not letting his fame go to his head. Buddha's laying here beside me and Uno walked up to him, touched noses with him then turned her head to the side and Buddha obligingly washed her behind the ears. Even after his amazing achievement of being a DDP two days in a row, he doesn't even want a day off from his self-imposed duties of groomer/ear washer, comforter, and friend to all.

There is another self-imposed duty Buddha does that I haven't mentioned yet. Whenever I've had an elderly cat declining and getting close to passing, Buddha senses it just as I do and he will stay near that ca, gently wash his or hear head and ears, and comfort him or her. If the cat is caged, he will lay on top of the cage until I open the cage door and bring the cat out to care for him or her. Another thing that happens when the cat gets close to passing is the other cats will come in one by one and visit with him or her, as if they know he or she is getting ready to pass and are coming to say their goodbyes and pay their respects. Most of my elderly cats have passed while lying in a soft towel in my arms or on my lap as I stroked them gently, with Buddha sitting at their side.

I feel that although I couldn't make them live forever, its only right that I stay with them when they get ready to pass so at least at the end I was with them and they were warm, comfortable, and in my arms or on my lap being stroked and soothed and knowing they were loved when they passed. With the few cats that have had to be euthanized over the years, such as my multiple Grand Champion Siamese who had to be euthanized at only 6 for very aggressive breast cancer, I always stay with the cat and pet and stroke her. Over the years I've had a few cats such as Hallie, who went off alone and passed suddenly and unexpectedly without giving any sign that the end is near and I always wished somehow I could have known they were going to pass so I could have been with them at their passing too.

May Buddha have many more years of earthly life to continue living up to his name in his most unique exceptional ways.

Thank you once again for honoring Buddha and Uno with another DDP and even both on the same day!

Buddha, ever living up to his name, has been busy today helping me encourage a hit-by-car cat to do her physical therapy. The hit-by-car cat's owner was going to have animal control take her and euthanize her but a friend of mine who worked for the owner intervened and so the cat (named Lucy Liu) came to me in December with a broken pelvis and peripheral nerve damage in her right hindleg. Her pelvis has now healed but nerve damage takes a long time to heal and I've been having to do physically therapy with her every day or so.

When I reached a point in her physical therapy where I am trying to encourage her to walk around and use her body more, Buddha usually is right there with me, helping encourage her. Sometimes a few of my other feline family will also interact very gently with her and try to encourage her to play.

I haven't put a profile up for Lucy Liu yet because I've been waiting for her to heal then I've been waiting for her to become more comfortable and at ease so I can get some decent photos of her. She mostly wants to curl up in a ball in her cage (an x-large plastic dog crate) and if she had her own way she wouldn't move at all except to go to her litter, water dish, food dish, and her bed. I put a figure-8 harness and a lightweight leash on her when I take her out of the cage to do her physical therapy. She has learned that when I put her harness and leash on her and take her out of her cage, she cannot get back to the cage until I take her back and once she realized she cannot get back to the cage on her own when I have her out for therapy, she's begun to relax more and pay more attention to things around her

When I do put Lucy Liu's profile up, I'll tell her story in detail in her own diary. At first her story has mostly consisted of letting her pelvic fracture heal. After that her story has mostly consisted of physical therapy. Lucy appears to be a very sweet natured cat but it's hard to yet know her real personality because when she first came, she was frightened, in pain, and uncomfortable. I have yet to see what she's like if she's able to get around normally and becomes more comfortable and sure of herself.

One thing's for sure. Buddha is a lot of help to me in encouraging Lucy Liu because being a cat, he's able to communicate far more effectively with her than any human can.

A bit belated Buddha thank you to all his feline friends for your thoughtfulness, caring, treats, rosettes, stars, and Valentines.

Buddha keeps himself very busy lately between helping with Lucy Liu's physical therapy by trying to encourage her to get up and move around, playing with and supervising the younger cats, mentoring Buttons, keeping everyone's heads and ears washed, helping to keep my blankets nice and warm for me at night, and taking care of his own needs too.

Yesterday I had a bad headache and Buddha spent most of the day laying on my lap, purring, doing his best to comfort me in his own feline way. Somehow he always knows when I'm not feeling well, when I'm in pain, when I'm sad, when I'm depressed, etc and although other cats will come lay with me and try to comfort me too, Buddha is the one who ALWAYS is right there with me at these times.

Anyone who believes the myths that cats are independent, aloof, cold-natured etc, simply haven't opened their minds and hearts enough yet to enjoy a good relationship with a cat and those people don't know what they're missing!

I keep seeing all these boys with Dreamboat titles and Dreamboat In Training titles & I would like to know how does somebody become a D.I.T. and Dreamboat?

What does it take to qualify? I don't know if I'd qualify or not because I look kinda like a black panther & some people who don't know me say I'm kinda scary looking. Actually I never really thought much about how I look til now. Most of the time I'm busy taking care of everybody, trying to keep the younger kitties from getting themselves into too much trouble, running my ear wash-yes that's EAR wash, not car wash!, and trying to help our human Mom motivate Lucy Liu to exercise and move around at least a little.

There's some younger boys around here Mom hasn't put on Catster yet (except they are in some of our pics) and they may be handsome enough to become D.I.T. /Dreamboats. I'm gonna tell Mom to put profiles up for them so I'm not the only boy in our kitty family with a Catster profile!

While I'm asking, I might as well ask how a girl kitty becomes a Dreamette. The girls around here are really pretty.

My bad, I forgot to congratulate the guys who achieved their DIT & their Dreamboat titles. From what I can tell, achieving a DIT and achieving the title of Dreamboat is quite an honor even though I still don't know what you have to do to qualify to be a DIT or a Dreamboat.

Obviously you guys are thrilled with your DIT & Dreamboat titles though, so that's enough for me to be happy for you. I don't have to understand it. You're happy so I'm happy for you!

BTW there ought to be a title for Pranksters & Mischief Makers so Uno has something to qualify for. Hehe I know that's being catty-no pun intended.

Many times in their own way, our kitty families make just as much or more effort to take good care of us, their humans, as we make to take good care of them.

For most of my life, I've gotten migraine headaches. Anybody who ever has had a migraine knows there's no other headache that even begins to compare to the kind of misery a migraine can put you through. A migraine can be so painful that if splitting your head open with a brick would relieve the pain, you might be tempted to try it. There's no such thing as a mild migraine.

Migraine symptoms vary widely. With each individual headache you can have different symptoms or different combinations of symptoms. For those of you who are interested, here's some migraine information from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/migraine-headache/DS00120

Prodrome
One or two days before a migraine, you may notice subtle changes that may signify an oncoming migraine, including:
Constipation
Depression
Diarrhea
Food cravings
Hyperactivity
Irritability
Neck stiffness

Aura
Most people experience migraine headaches without aura. Auras are usually visual but can also be sensory, motor or verbal disturbances. Each of these symptoms typically begins gradually, builds up over several minutes, then commonly lasts for 10 to 30 minutes. Examples of aura include:
Visual phenomena, such as seeing various shapes, bright spots or flashes of light
Vision loss
Pins and needles sensations in an arm or leg
Speech or language problems

Less commonly, an aura may be associated with aphasia or limb weakness (hemiplegic migraine).

Attack
When untreated, a migraine typically lasts from four to 72 hours, but the frequency with which headaches occur varies from person to person. You may have migraines several times a month or much less frequently. During a migraine, you may experience some of the following symptoms:
Pain on one side of your head
Pain that has a pulsating, throbbing quality
Sensitivity to light, sounds and sometimes smells
Nausea and vomiting
Blurred vision
Diarrhea
Lightheadedness, sometimes followed by fainting
Chills & Fever

Postdrome
The final phase — known as postdrome — occurs after a migraine attack, when you may feel drained and washed out, though some people report feeling mildly euphoric.

Over the last couple of days, I've had a migraine coming on. It hit me hard last night, leaving me writhing in my bed in the dark in total misery. As I lay there feeling like screaming with the pain, I slowly became aware of the infinitely soothing lull of Lefty's loud purring by my right ear. Then Little Skittles started gently washing my forehead. Lily curled up beside Lefty, added her purring to Lefty's comforting rumble, and started washing my right arm.

One of the most pleasant experiences in the world is the experience of being gently washed by a cat. The cat's rough tongue, it's temperature, and degree of wetness is just right to feel wonderful on human skin. I've often wondered if it's possible to invent some kind of wash cloth, exfoliating brush, or other such face and body cleansing tool that would be able to emulate a cat's tongue. I think such a tool would make the ideal skin cleaning implement!

Buddha came up and gently lay on my abdomen to soothe it's pain with his warmth. Splat Cat lay on one of her favorite "perches" on my body, my left knee. Uno stretched herself out across my chest. Nearby, Righty, Farrah, Moose, and Velcro added the purring chorus. Skittles continued washing my head and face, Lily continued washing my right arm, Uno started washing my left arm.

Gradually, the efforts of my kitties began to have positive effect. The soothing purrs and kitty washing, the warmth of the kitties lying on and around me (I was having chills with this particular migraine) all felt so wonderfully soothing and comforting. Although the migraine still persisted, as the kitties helped me relax, the pain and misery of the migraine diminished noticeably.

My ever faithful Kitty Family TLC Crew was on duty as usual, right when I needed them most!

Uno may not like the newcomers getting in her way and spoiling her fun she shouldn't be having in the first place, but I for one like the newcomers.

While Uno gripes about the newcomers, I've gotten Kitty GaGa to already be comfortable with me that when we're sleeping with Mom at night and I lay down beside Kitty GaGa, she leaned against me and forgot to hiss at me for touching her. Now THAT'S progress, Buddha style!

I can't understand why people make such a fuss over that one cat on the internet just because it has a grumpy look on its face. I have a grumpy look on my face most of the time and nobody except Mom gives me any attention for it at all. Mom calls it my grouchy panther look. The funny thing is, I almost never get grouchy, never have. I'm almost always in a good mood. So don't let my grouchy panther look fool you. I really am not a grouch at all!

Take THAT, grumpy internet kitty! My grouchy look is as good as yours even if people haven't been fortunate enough to recognize that fact yet!